


A Constellation For You

by em_ly_how



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 14:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16097189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_ly_how/pseuds/em_ly_how
Summary: Cass has spent her whole life on the run, never sure what she's running from, but always with a clear destination: she wants to find her parents. But what happens when she does find them? When a strange and wonderful man drops out of the sky and seems to know both everything and nothing about her, Cass is thrilled...and terrified. Can this really be her father? Now that she's finally found her family, her dream of a perfect life should be coming true. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and Cass will have to learn to live with a whole new kind of running...and a whole new idea of family.





	1. Chapter 1

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t running. I’m not saying there wasn’t one, but try as I might, I don’t remember it. Sometimes flashes of memory come through in my dreams, and I write them down, but it’s never anything concrete or helpful. It’s usually my mother that I see, but only bits and pieces. Her hair, curls that go on for miles, her smile as she told me stories. Enough to know that she is beautiful but not enough to know what she looks like. I know I’ll recognize her, though, if I ever find her. My father, I can’t say as much for. I never met him, and I don’t think he even knows I exist. In the letter Mom left for me, she only said that he was the kindest and strongest man she’d ever met, and that he’s dangerous. And that, of course, is why I love him, she wrote. I have the letter memorized by now, but how could I not? What else would I have done with the last eighteen years?  
Mom left me with a perfectly nice family, but by the time I was a teenager, I proved too much to handle. They wanted to take me to Social Services, but I refused, wrote an apology note, and ran away in the middle of an October night. I lived on the streets for a little while, but I was only thirteen and I didn’t really know how to live on my own. My mother’s letter, which I kept in my coat pocket and reread almost daily, offered only one piece of advice. I think there will come a time when you find yourself lost. I pray there doesn’t, but it seems inevitable. Should you find yourself there, please don’t stay on your own. It isn’t safe. There is a man you need to find—Captain Jack Harkness. Tell him your name; he’ll know who you are, and he’ll keep you safe.  
So that’s what I did. Jack Harkness was not an easy man to find, mostly because he didn’t technically exist. Then again, neither do I. But eventually, after a few weeks of listening in on the local police radio channel, I found Torchwood. In retrospect, I must have looked a mess when they found me, a skinny kid in raggedy clothes curled up on the floor next to their front desk. Jack hadn’t especially wanted to take me in, and he didn’t hesitate to make that known. But I showed him the letter and he sighed and let me stay.  
I learned a lot over the next few years. I wasn’t surprised about the existence of aliens or anything, but I’d never realized how many there were or how often they ended up on Earth. As much as I’d learned, though, there’s one thing Jack would never tell me: who I am. He always says he doesn’t know exactly, anyway, so what’s the point of saying anything? We’d been arguing about it more and more lately, and today was no exception.  
“For fuck’s sake, Jack,” I said, following him into his office, “I’m not a kid anymore! I deserve to know!”  
“I’m telling you, Cass, I don’t fucking know.” He yanked off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.  
“You know more than I do!”  
“Cass.”  
“It’s not fair!” I knew I sounded like a whiny toddler, but I didn’t care. I was pissed.  
“How many goddamn times do we have to have this conversation?” I could feel tears pricking the back of my eyes, and I wiped them away angrily. I hated this, hated fighting, hated that I always ended up crying. “Look, Cass,” Jack said, his voice softening, “I know this sucks. You’re right, it’s not fair. But I honest to God don’t know the whole story, and I promised your mother that I wouldn’t tell you any more than you needed to know.”  
Wait, what? He promised my mother...this was new information.  
“You knew her?”  
“It’s...complicated.” He clearly regretted saying it, and now he was trying to cover his ass.  
“And you never told m-”  
“JACK! We’ve got incoming!” Gwen shouted from downstairs. She was the only other one still here; everyone else had gone home.  
“What is it?” He called back, going to the door.  
“I don’t know! Nothing should be able to get in here, but something sure is!”  
I followed Jack as he ran into the main room. There was a miniature tornado in the center of the room; papers were flying off the desks in every direction. A whooshing sound accompanied the wind. It sounded like a cross between heavy breathing and the sound my laptop makes when it overheats.  
“Jack, what the hell is it?” I asked. I knew I should stand back, but something about the sound was drawing me in.  
“Nobody panic. Gwen, you can put the gun down,” Jack said. We both looked at him, awaiting further information, until suddenly the sound stopped. I looked back at where the tornado had been, and in its place was...a big blue box? It looked a bit like a phone booth, except for the color and the lettering across the top that read “Police Public Call Box.”  
I stared at it, fascinated. What was it? Why was it here? And, perhaps most importantly, why did I feel so drawn to it? I should have been wary of my feelings, I knew that sometimes alien objects had emotional power over people, but there was something about it, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, that just felt...right.  
The door of the box creaked as it opened. A tall, thin man in a tweed jacket and a bowtie stepped out. He looked human, though something about the fact that he had just appeared out of nowhere in a big wooden box and didn’t look the least bit surprised about it suggested otherwise. Well, that and the fashion sense.  
“Ah, brilliant,” he declared. He sounded human.  
“Hello, Doctor,” Jack greeted, “I like the new look.”  
“Captain Jack! I was hoping I’d find you here.”  
I looked at Gwen. She looked back with an expression that indicated she had no more of a clue what was going on than I did. “Um,” Gwen cleared her throat. “Care to introduce us?”  
“Oh, hello!” The man said, “I’m The Doctor.”  
“Gwen Cooper.”  
“Yes, I know. We’ve met. Well, I’ve met you, but you clearly haven’t met me yet.” Before anyone could question what that meant, he turned to me. “And you are?”  
“Um, Cass,” I said.  
“Ah, brilliant name. Short for Cassandra? I knew a Cassandra once, though I didn’t particularly...anyway,” he trailed off.  
“No, actually. Cassiopeia.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, like the constellation.” I rolled my eyes. “Sometimes I think my mother had a little too much fun naming me. I mean, I wouldn’t want a boring name, but Cassiopeia Amelia Song is a hell of a mouthful.”  
The man froze on the spot. He looked...what? Shocked? Frightened? Baffled?  
“What did you just say?”  
“I said my full name is a hell of a mouthful sometimes.”  
“No, but, your name...sorry, where is your mother?”  
“Uh, not here?” He was starting to freak me out. “She left me when I was two. To keep me safe. I don’t know.”  
“Do you know her name?” he asked. I shook my head. “Jack,” The Doctor asked, “who is this?”  
Jack looked back and forth between us for what felt like an eternity before he spoke. “Gwen, why don’t you head home? Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.” When Gwen had left, he looked at each of us again, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. “Man, did I not want to have to be the one to do this. Um, well. You see…”  
“Jack, what’s going on?” I asked, walking up to him.  
“Doctor, you’re right. Everything you’re thinking right now, everything you’re thinking is impossible, is true. Cass, um,” he took my hand the way he did whenever I was scared. “This is your father.”  
“What?” I hadn’t processed what he’d said, not really.  
“What?” the Doctor repeated. “Captain, this had better not be a practical joke, because if-”  
“No, it’s not. Honest to God, I could not make this shit up. Cass, show him the letter.”  
My hands shook slightly as I pulled the faded paper from my coat pocket. I never let anyone read that letter. I held it out to the man, and he took it gingerly, as if he was afraid he might break it at any moment. I watched as he unfolded it, watched as his green eyes scanned each line, watched as those eyes very slightly filled with tears.  
“Well, that’s certainly River’s handwriting,” he said, “I mean, it’s really, properly, definitely…” he trailed off, reading the letter again as if the words might have changed.  
“There’s a drawing on the back,” I offered, not knowing what else to say. “I don’t think it means anything, but, I don’t know, maybe it does to you.” He flipped over the second page of the letter. I had wondered a thousand time what it was. It seemed so random compared to the rest, just a bunch of circles. The Doctor chuckled.  
“What is it?” Jack asked.  
“It’s Gallifreyan,” the Doctor replied, speaking mostly to me. “The language of my home planet.”  
“I figured,” Jack replied, “but what does it say?”  
“It says, ‘Hello Sweetie.’”


	2. Chapter 2

I held the mug of tea with both hands, afraid I would drop it. “A time what?” I asked.  
“Time Lord.”  
“Which is…”  
“Not human.”  
“So you’re an…”  
“Alien.”  
“And I’m…”  
“My daughter.” He looked a little faint at that word, though he was trying to hide it. Jack had left us with tea and pizza and gone to bed, though I doubted he was sleeping.   
“What about my mother?”  
“What about her?”  
“Who is she? Where is she? How do you know her? Why did she leave me here? Why didn’t you know about me? What do we do now?” The questions spilled out faster than I had meant for them to.   
“Her name is River Song. Well, technically her name is Melody Pond. Well...that’s beside the point. She’s my wife, though we don’t exactly live together. As for you, well, I have no idea. I have no idea. I don’t even know when...well, I suppose it was…” he was blushing now. I cringed. He was figuring out when I had been concieved. Gross.  
“Can we find her? Can I meet her? I want to talk to her.”  
“Well, yes, I suppose we can. I have a few questions for her myself.”  
“And you’re really my dad?” I asked. Part of me still doubted it, wanted to protect myself from believing it was true.  
“Apparently,” he said. Then more confidently, “Yes. I really am.”  
I set my mug down carefully and took a hesitant step toward him. He looked at me, trying to figure out what I was doing. I didn’t really know what I was doing, either, except trying to find proof that this was all real. I approached him and cautiously reached out my hand to touch his face, still half afraid he was a hologram or something. To my surprise, he really was real; his face was warm and soft and just a little bit stubbly.  
“Oh my god,” I whispered, taking my hand back and looking up at him. He looked back at me with a face that mirrored my own emotions. We stood like that for a while, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I dropped the cautious wall I’d put up and threw my arms around him. He froze for a moment before hugging me back, then held me almost desperately, as if he was afraid I’d disappear.  
“Cassiopeia Amelia Song,” he said into my hair, “My daughter.”  
I didn’t know what to say. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I never shut up; I always have something to say, usually something clever. But this time, I was speechless. I just clung to him, this strange man. I didn’t even know his name, but it was like part of me knew him. I’m not one to let my emotions get the best of me, even though I cry easily. One thing you learn when you don’t know who you are is to be careful, to question everything. And normally, I did. But this was different; this was new territory, and I had no idea how to navigate it.  
“Are you okay?” The Doctor asked, letting go of me.   
“Yeah, fine. Good. Why?”   
“You’re shaking.” Was I? I looked at my hands. I was.  
“Oh. This is all just kind of...a lot, I guess,” I said.   
“Right. Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “What do you think, should we call it a day on big stuff? Maybe go to bed and figure things out in the morning?”  
“Absolutely not.”  
He smiled, a big, goofy, full-face smile. “Alright then! Brilliant. Into the box!”  
“Into the box?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.  
“Trust me.”  
I did trust him, though part of me was still screaming that this was stupid and too good to be true. I walked up to the police box and pushed on the door. In that moment, I knew. I really, really knew, and the cynical part of me all but evaporated. The box, which couldn’t have been much more than a meter square on the outside, contained a whole world. I’d walked into a room easily the size of the one I had just been standing in. There were doors leading off in every direction, and in the center stood a console with every kind of switch and button and lever imaginable.   
“Holy fucking shit,” I whispered.  
“What do you think?” The Doctor asked, standing in the door behind me.  
“It’s...it’s...bigger...on the inside,” I said. “What is it?”  
“This is my TARDIS. That’s time and relative dimension in space. It can travel anywhere you like in time and space and, yes, it’s bigger on the inside. Questions?”  
He was grinning ear-to-ear. I did have questions, a lot of questions, but I couldn’t think straight long enough to ask any of them. Spaceship, I could live with, I’d seen plenty since I’d moved into Torchwood, but time travel? That was a new one. Not that it was the strangest thing I’d heard today.   
“Cass? You alright? I know it can be a bit much.”  
“Huh? Oh, yeah, good, I’m good, I’m...wow. Yeah. Anywhere? Really?”  
“Anywhere, any time. Why? Got somewhere in mind?”   
I had a feeling he knew what I was thinking, and I had a feeling the answer was going to be no, but I had to try.  
“Yeah, actually. November 19th, 2000. 37 Thompson Street, London, England, Earth. The night my mother left me with the Williams family.”  
He paused, scratching the back of his neck. “The thing about that,” he started.  
“Please.” I hadn’t realized how much I wanted this. I wasn’t going to try and stop her or anything, I just wanted to see, I wanted to understand.  
“Okay,” he said after a pause. “Okay, fine. But listen to me, because this is important. You absolutely must not, under any circumstances, do anything but watch. This already involves crossing your own timestream, which is dangerous enough, but if you interact with the situation at all, you could rip a hole in the fabric of the universe.”  
“Got it,” I replied. “No holes in time and space.”  
“And I’m not just saying that,” he added. “Last time I let someone see their own past, there were pterodactyls at a wedding, people disappearing, and her dad ended up dying anyway, so seriously, just watch.”  
“Pterodactyls?” I asked.  
“Well, they weren’t actually pterodactyls.”  
“Has anyone ever told you that you sound ridiculous?”   
“Yes. Shall we?”  
I smiled. “Geronimo.”  
He pulled a big lever and the ship started moving and making the noise I’d heard earlier. When it stopped a few seconds later, it didn’t feel like we’d moved much, but I could tell we were in a different place. It felt different.   
“Are we there?” I asked.  
“Yes. Well, actually we’re here. There is here. Here is there. Wait, did you just say ‘geronimo’?”  
I laughed. “Yeah, why?”  
“I say that.”  
“So?”  
“So that’s my thing, the thing that I say, and you also say it.”  
“And?”  
“And you say it, and I...also say it. Never mind.”  
“No, what?” I asked.   
“It’s just...you’re my daughter. I have a daughter, and she’s you, and you’re here, with me, in the TARDIS.” He was clearly still processing this. I was also still processing it, but I was past my standing around thinking about it stage of processing.  
“Yeah,” I said. “All true. Good job. Can we go now?”  
He gestured at the door. I opened it slowly and smiled when I saw the street I’d grown up on. We had moved, alright. I stepped onto the sidewalk, the place I had learned to ride a bike, the place I had colored rainbows on with chalk. Except none of that had happened yet, because it was 2000, and I was two. My head started to hurt just thinking about that; that these things had already happened but hadn’t happened yet. I looked around, spotting number 37 a few doors down and across the street.  
“This is the closest we can get without risking being seen.” The Doctor was standing behind me now.   
“How do you know she won’t see us anyway?” I asked. I hadn’t even thought about it.  
“Perception filter. Basically-”  
“Oh, I know how those work. There’s a spot like that outside Torchwood. Did you do that?”  
“Ah. Yes. Long story.”  
“Look!” I whispered, pointing to a woman walking toward us on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. “That’s her, isn’t it?”  
He nodded. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she looked just how I thought she would. She wore jeans and a dark jacket, as if she was trying avoid being seen. She carried something in her arms, which after a moment I realized must be me. She held me close to her body. As she moved into the light of a streetlamp, I could see better. She was saying something to me, though I appeared to be asleep. She walked up to the house and rang the doorbell. Anna Williams answered the door. She looked younger than I remembered her, her hair not yet graying and her face unwrinkled. My mother handed me to Anna, then pulled an envelope out of her coat pocket and handed it over, too. The letter. Anna asked her something, but we were to far away to hear what it was. My mother looked at me for a long time, and then nodded. Anna said something else, and Mom kissed my head, turned around and walked away. I realized I was starting to get angry just as I saw her stop. She leaned against the streetlamp, wrapped her arms around her body, and hung her head.   
“Is she crying?” I whispered.  
The Doctor nodded. “Yes, I think she is.”  
I took a step forward before I could think about what I was doing. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back.  
“Sorry,” I said.  
“It’s okay. I think we should go.”  
I nodded and stepped back into the TARDIS, pausing to steal one more look. She was gone.


End file.
